In Like a Lion

Is this guy nuts? Facing an uncertain future, Luis Lozada is soliciting bids on eBay for the silver Cyber Lion he won this year for a breast-cancer awareness banner out of Contacto Marketing in Coral Gables, Fla. By late last Friday, five bidders had conspired to take the going price on the “Rare Cannes Silver Lion—Shiny, New 2002!!!” to a whopping $26.

But Lozada knows what he’s doing. He built in a reserve price, which means the Lion can’t be sold for less than a certain amount—in this case, $60,000. It isn’t worth that much, of course, so Lozada is also offering his creative services for a year as part of the package. In other words, this is a résumé posting offering a year’s work at a healthy salary—with the Lion as a carrot. “Best of all,” says the blurb, “you will get every possible effort from me to bring your own agency its very own Lion.”

Lozada has been looking for work since mid-September, when he left Contacto after getting tired of working on “bad retail stuff.” He says the idea for this eBay gimmick came “just from having so much time.” He admits the folks at Contacto might get upset if he finds anyone to hire him, but adds, “Nobody there really had anything to do with the [Lion-winning] ad. It was just me and my boss.” The boss, incidentally, no longer works at Contacto either, Lozada said.